There are specific scenes in “Bless me, Ultima” that reminded me very much of the three other books we have read in this class.  On the very first page of chapter ‘Uno’, Antonio is describing his family and their home, and this reminded me of Piri talking about his family and his home; of course, both these books are written in the first person.  “From the top of the stairs I had a vantage point into the heart of our home, my mother’s kitchen” (1).  Right after this, Antonio admits that from that viewpoint he was able to see the face of Chavez when he delivered the news of the death of the sheriff, which immediately made me think about Gregorio Cortez.  Also referring to Gregorio Cortez, one scene that reminded me of him was when Antonio spots Lupito, “the man who had killed the sheriff” (18), and sees him “crouched in the reeds and half submerged in the muddy waters” (18).  Antonio then describes to us that “the glint of light was from the pistol he held in his hand.” (18).  Immediately after reading this, I wondered a) why Lupito had killed the sheriff, and b) why is he not considered a hero, like in Paredes’s book?  On that same page, Antonio even says: “I knew that the sheriff had been greatly admired” (20).  Was the sheriff that Gregorio Cortez shot greatly admired?  And by who?  Later on, Antonio speaks about Lupito’s soul and says: “He had killed the sheriff and so he had died with a mortal sin on his soul.  He would go to hell.” (27).  It’s interesting to compare the killing of sheriff in this book, versus “With His Pistol in His Hand”; Gregorio Cortez killed a sheriff and became a hero, where as Lupito committed the same act, and is not a hero whatsoever in the eyes of the characters.  At church, one young girl even says: “He’ll go to hell.  It’s the law that he go to hell for what he did.” (37); and speaking about the law, the narrator says: “God was not always forgiving.  He made laws to follow and if you broke them you were punished.” (44).  Unlike the previous books we’ve read, here for the first time we see God as a “lawmaker”.

I also found it interesting to compare Piri to Antonio; for example, Antonio thinks: “Sometimes I felt like Jason, like I wanted to shout and cry, but I never did” (10), and in many ways this kind of emotional suppression reminds me of Piri.  To me, Antonio doesn’t seem like a “normal” six year old boy; most six year old boys would shout and cry if they felt like it.  Antonio seems very smart; there are multiple times in the book where he claims to understand the actions and motives behind certain behaviours.  For example, Antonio says that he was sure that his father was going to get up and shoot the owl with the old rifle he kept, but didn’t.  Antonio says that he “accepted his understanding” (13).  Antonio also recognizes what he doesn’t understand, which is also interesting to me; he seems to be extremely aware of what goes on around him, and of other people’s feelings as well.  For example:  “It was a cry that I did not understand, and I am sure the men on the bridge did not either” (19).  It’s impossible to imagine what it would be like to witness the death of a person at the age of 6, and Antonio seems to be quite effected by it, but again, he doesn’t seem to express these emotions and let them out.  He seems shocked; for example, he thinks: “the river’s brown waters would be stained with blood, forever and ever and ever” (24).  Here we see this child-like mentality.  We also see that Antonio questions the idea of right vs wrong; for example, he thinks to himself: “The men of the town had murdered Lupito. But he had murdered the sheriff. They said the war had made him crazy” (24).   Similar to Piri, Antonio knows he must become a man: “I knew I had to grow up and be a man, but oh it was so very hard” (59).  Actually, the topic of ‘becoming a man’ appears various times throughout this first half of the book.